Michigan Wild Turkey Hunters Association
The Pere Marquette Chapter and the Kenowa Beards and Spurs Chapter represented MWTHA at our booth at the Hunting Time Expo in Grand Rapids on 1/28/11 through 1/30/11 Another successful show for MWTHA.
2/11/11 met with State Senator Darwin Booher to discuss possible legislation that would finally allocate the use of the restricted Turkey Find. (read the September 2010 article entitled Where The Money Isn’t Going).
In the September 2010 issue an article was written, entitled Of Wasted Days. It explained the downward spiral of our Wild Turkey flocks throughout the northern lower peninsula. It explained our opposition to opening the fall season three weeks early and our opposition to continuing the fall season in Mecosta, Newaygo and Oceana counties (Area HA).
Our concerns fell on deaf ears within the DNR.
Glen Sheppard of Charlevoix County passed away this past January. He and his wife, Mary Lou were the owners and publishers of The North Woods Call “an admittedly biased newspaper dedicated to the proposition that there is only one side in any issue involving natural resources…NATURES!”.
Glen was never politically correct. He wrote his articles telling the story just the way it was, always ruffling the feathers of the bureaucrats and politicians who compromised our natural resources. At one time he so enraged DNR director K.L. Kool that he ordered the removal of the Call from the DNR RAM center at Higgins Lake and ordered them out of all DNR offices. Glen wore that as a badge of honor.
This past opening day of the firearm deer season I was waiting for the first magical moments of first light. The wind was calm, with a tinge of frost in the air. With the rut in full swing it was a perfect opening morning. A quarter mile east of my stand was a 19,000 acre block of state land designated “timber intensive”.
Over the previous years less shots could be heard each passing year. This time a few shots were heard being fired from private property surrounding my location but just a very rare shot heard from state land. Four of my friends were hunting in that block. After hunting for two full days three of them saw six deer together, while one was lucky to see six deer.
